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American Presidential Home Brewers

We expect a lot from our Presidents. Sign this bill, kill this terrorist, take a lengthy vacation, sign this other bill, cover up that murder committed by your cousin, give a presidential pardon to a turkey on Thanksgiving, it can be quite a chore. And many American Presidents have had to find their own creative ways to let off some steam while on the job. Richard Nixon had his voyeuristic taping habits. Bill Clinton had chubby chicks. Jimmy Carter would club homeless people over the head and trap them inside the drywall of houses made for the poor.

However, there is a little known Presidential hobby that is becoming increasingly popular, and results in a lot less collateral damage than Jimmy “My Kindly Southern Disposition Hides a Sinister Past” Carter.

That’s right. Presidents like to brew beer. USA! USA!

“Osama’s dead! I mean…beer!”

Presidential beer brewing is actually the oldest presidential tradition, though far from the most common. While our hungover research staff could only find two presidents that actually did this, it gets a lot more President Cred when you see that the George Motherfucking Washington was one of them. That’s right, George Washington had a personal beer recipe that was recently released by the New York Public Library, news which surely will result in a whole slew of lazily written “I cannot tell a lie” jokes.

For those of you who have a fear of blue lettering, below is an actual beer recipe written by our nation’s founding father.

“To Make Small Beer

Take a large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste. — Boil these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gall[ons] into a cooler put in 3 Gall[ons] Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses into the cooler & St[r]ain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of Yea[s]t if the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blank[et] & let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask — leave the bung open till it is almost don[e] Working — Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.”

Apart from confirming all of our previous assumptions regarding the Americanness of proper spelling (manely that its stoopid) we have to admit that this was on the short list of items that could only improve our opinion of George Washington further. Did George Washington know how to make his own beer? Yes. Was he confident enough in his recipe to share it with other people? Of course he was. Did he often stumble around the battlefield during the Revolutionary War, chugging his own beer and shouting, “Is that the best you got, fuckers?” to the British while dodging bullets like goddamn Spiderman? Probably not, but don’t ruin that mental image for us with your pesky “Historical facts.”

Carrying on this tradition is President Obama, who has been having a pretty good May. Yeah, he got that birth certificate thing taken care of, and then he knocked out Osama Bin Laden, but getting beer brewed in the White House too? We don’t like to take sides, politically, unless it’s to disparage Jimmy Carter because Jimmy Carter just looks like a pussy, but we do endorse the fact that there is going to be White House brewed beer.

The beer has to be pretty good too, since he’s bringing it with him to drink in an Irish pub. While homebrewing is an increasingly popular hobby for America (because, come on, it’s practically free beer), it’s good to finally see a President (okay, technically it’s one of the White House workers who is brewing, but still) making intoxicating beverages for Americans to enjoy. And that’s how it should be. America, this one’s for you.

you can either hate jimmy carter, or you can like the fact that obama brews in the whitehouse – but you can’t have both. that’s because carter signed a law that made homebrewing legal. without carter, obama wouldn’t be allowed to brew. so quit yer hatin’ and start respectin’.

False: Jimmy Carter did not sign that law to legalize homebrewing. He was going to veto it, because he is boring, but his brother, Billy, broke into the White House and, in another classic Billy Carter prank, forged Jimmy’s name on the bill. And that’s why we at AFFotD love Billy Carter, we not just because we found a case of Billy Beer the other day, chugged it, and are still seeing visions.